Science

South Korean officials have used artificial intelligence to estimate the weight of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “He appeared tired with clear dark circles around his eyes during his public appearance on May 16, and was estimated to weigh over 140kg according to AI analysis,” Yoo Sang-bum, a member of the parliamentary intelligence committee,

NASA has held its first public meeting on UFOs, a year after launching a study into unexplained sightings. The space agency televised the four-hour-long hearing on Wednesday, featuring an independent panel of experts at NASA headquarters in Washington, with the public taking part remotely. The team included 16 scientists and other experts selected by NASA

A drug commonly prescribed to pregnant women with an inheritable blood clotting condition and a history of recurrent miscarriage does not help to reduce their miscarriage risk, new research has found. Researchers are advising doctors to stop offering the blood thinner Low Molecular Weight Heparin (heparin) to patients with inherited thrombophilia. The condition results in

The rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is not only raising concerns among societies and lawmakers, but also some tech leaders at the heart of its development. Some experts, including the ‘godfather of AI’ Geoffrey Hinton, have warned that AI poses a similar risk of human extinction as pandemics and nuclear war. From the boss

The possibility COVID-19 could have leaked from a Chinese lab should not be ruled out, a former top Chinese government scientist has said. Professor George Gao, the former head of China’s Centre for Disease Control (CDC), told the BBC Radio 4 podcast Fever: The Hunt for COVID’s Origin: “You can always suspect anything. That’s science.

Elon Musk’s brain chip firm Neuralink has said it has been given the go-ahead to start carrying out studies on humans. Neuralink said in a tweet on Thursday it had won the approval of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “to launch our first-in-human clinical study!” It represents “an important first step that will

Artificial intelligence has been used to identify a new antibiotic capable of killing a type of bacteria responsible for many drug-resistant infections. The new antibiotic was identified by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and McMaster University from a library of nearly 7,000 potential drug compounds. The researchers used a machine-learning model they had trained

The Royal Navy has carried out the first trial of a quantum navigation system that could allow a vessel to know its precise position anywhere in the world without using GPS. The technology, developed by physicists at Imperial College in London, exploits the quantum properties of atoms to measure an object’s movement more precisely than

Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit has announced it will be shutting down. It comes a few months after a space mission ended in disappointment, when a rocket carrying the first satellites launched from the UK failed to reach orbit and was lost. On Tuesday, the firm revealed it was closing down after its assets were sold

Elon Musk has hit out at artificial intelligence (AI), saying it is not “necessary for anything we’re doing”. The Tesla, Twitter and SpaceX owner claimed super-intelligence was “a double-edged sword”. “If you have a genie that can grant you anything, that presents a danger,” according to the billionaire, who said AI could be used to

Netflix has expanded its crackdown on password sharing, telling users worldwide their accounts cannot be shared for free outside their households. The streaming service has been looking for new revenue streams amid fears of market saturation, with efforts including limits on password borrowing and a new advert-supported option. On Tuesday, the company said it was

A fake image that appeared to show an explosion near the Pentagon briefly went viral on social media and left fact-checkers and the local fire service scrambling to counter the claim. It appeared the image, which purported to show a large cloud of black smoke next to the US headquarters of the Department of Defence,

Facebook’s failure to stop open containers of baby formula being traded online has put infants in danger, campaigners and charities say. It comes after a Sky News investigation into the desperate measures some families are having to take because they cannot afford the rising prices of infant formula milk. Hartlepool Baby Bank highlighted the “horrendous”

Scientists have worked out the properties of an ancient galaxy 25 million light years away, believing it to have a supermassive black hole at its centre. The astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope – the most powerful telescope ever built – to look in detail at the galaxy GS-9209, which was born about 600

Elephants enjoy the presence of zoo visitors, according to a new study. Animal behaviour experts at Nottingham Trent University and Harper Adams University looked at more than 100 research papers examining how visitors affected the behaviour of more than 250 species in zoos. They found that elephants socialised more with each other during public feeding

A new wave of convincing scams is “bombarding consumers from every direction”, according to consumer group Which?. The group has issued a warning about the four most convincing scams seen so far this year, such as “pig butchering” and fake missing person appeals. Lisa Barber, Which? tech editor, said: “It’s appalling that 2023 has seen